Help Desk
Welcome to the '''GalCiv Help Desk'!'' You can ask questions here, and check back later for a response. Please check that your question has not already been answered by another page before asking here! You might also check out the Patch Notes for updates (to see if your issue has already been resloved). Note: Your question may be answered by other players. For official Stardock support, check out the Galactic Civilizations Knowledgebase, or submit a trouble ticket. Unanswered questions Got a question? Click the Edit link to the right of this note and type it in, then click Save. How do I get a Terror Star? I remember in Galactic Civilizations, the original, we could build a Terror Star. Was this function removed? Is it possible to disable auto designing of ships in GC2? Hi, I want my game to disable the automatic designing of new ships, ala Sid Meyer's alpha centauri. I want to design all my new ships from scratch myself with the components. Is it possible to do this? Specifying planet bonus tiles You know, like the precursor mine. Has anyone figured out a way to force a particular planet to start with a predetermined bonus tile? Miborovsky 04:10, 19 March 2006 (UTC) I heard in new 1.1 when you click an enemy ship/fleet it will show you its ultimate destination. Is there any way to see a turn by turn distance for enemy ships within your visual range and for ships that you have a low spy level on when out of your view? If not, I think this is a major oversight and very frustrating. Example 1 - It is my turn, and I see an enemy ship in my view. I want to know the furthest distance (actually shown by a line or radius on the map) he can move next turn so that I can position myself outside his range if I don't want to fight. We should be able to do this as when we click the ship it tells us how many spaces it can move per turn anyway and I am sick of guessing where that distance actually falls within the map and having to reload the game if I miscalculate. Example 2 - It is my turn, and there is an enemy right outside my sensor range (in the game I don't know he is there). I have a spy rating on this enemy so if he was in view I would be able to click him and see where he was going. It shouldn't make a difference if he is in my view or not, I should still be able to have this information as I got it from spying, not from seeing the ship. So can I see a line coming out of the fog indicating the enemy's next move or distance so I can plan my move accordingly? Along the lines of the previous question, when I click one of my ships, can I see a radius on the map of how far I can move that turn? After I have built a starbase, is there any simple way to know (ie, NOT having to click the tech tree etc) which modules would be availible for me to add at my current tech level without having to wait for a constructor to get there and pop up the upgrade menu? Can I do something like click the starbase and see that menu even without a constructor? How much of a planet or ship has to be within the blue starbase radius for it to have an effect. If the blue line will just be touching or just covers a tiny part of a planet and ship is that considered in the radius or does the entire thing have to be fully within it? If there is some portion that has to be in the radius for it to have an effect, is there a way to tell what will be in it and getting the bonus when building it (it the new show radius before placing starbase update?) Is there any way to cancel or backtrack after you have moved or have made a mistake like purchase the wrong thing etc, BEFORE you click the turn button. So say I tell ship A to move to the wrong spot, can I take that back and correct it before I press turn or do I just have to load a save? Recently answered questions Requesting permission I am Writing to ask permission to submit some skins and Dock Icons i did useing the art work that came with your Galactic Civilizations II game and the Galactic Civilizations II fan kit to www.wincustomize.com, Preview *logon1 Here *logon2 Here *docks Here logons are 1280 x 960 so give a sec to load. Can you please give a an answer either way, been trying for about 2 weeks vier email with no real response . hope you can help. SD (27/4/07 uk date) :I don't see a problem with submitting such skins to WinCustomize. Put a permissions.txt in the logon's folder saying that GreenReaper said it was OK and it should get through. --GreenReaper(talk) 21:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC) An approval rating of 100% doubles population growth. Does this work on a planet by planet basis, or does the whole Empire have to be at 100%? As far as I know, this is on a planet-by-planet basis. --GreenReaper(talk) 21:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC) Does trade ability bonus help the other side of the trade? Say I have a trade ability of +200% and I get a profit of 30bc/t from a freighter. If the AI I'm trading with has a trade ability of +100%, will it receive just 20bc/t, or would it get 30bc/t? Miborovsky 07:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC) :I would think they just get 20, assuming the base is 10. --GreenReaper(talk) 21:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC) What should I do to improve relations with a given race? Hi, I've just started a new game. The places in the small galaxy are being defined, and I feel an alliance is just what I need to secure my place in the universe. However, even though I have the "Alliances" tech, all other races are "neutral" to me. What can I do to improve it to "close" so I can ally with at least one of them? :Check the Foreign Policy's Report tab, you will see why a particular race like/dislike you. --Dabei 00:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC) :In general, trade with them more - both tech trading and with freighters - and they will like you more (especially if they think they got a good deal on the techs). --GreenReaper(talk) 21:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC) How are music files added? I tried to just add the file into the "music" folder, that didn't seem to work. So then I looked for an XML file and found "gc2_Multimedia.xml", but I have no idea where to get the MD5/date/sizes it wants. Can someone explain exactly how music files are added? :There isn't a way to add music files. The xml file above is just a part of the installer, so it knows what files to download. If you want to have your own music in the games you need to replace some of the existing files. --GreenReaper(talk) 21:18, 28 April 2006 (UTC) Can you make the game partial screen? I unchecked 'Fullscreen' under options, but it didn't do anything. :Sure. That's what you do - it takes a restart. However, if you don't change the resolution to be beneath your desktop resolution as well, it probably won't help (and if your screen is only 1024x786, that won't help either, as that is the minimum resolution). --GreenReaper(talk) 21:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC) In general, what's the optimal improvement build order for new planets? See planetary improvement strategies, in particular the Initial Build Order section. Is it true that the game use "online activation" (or through mail)? When is it required to activate the product? :Yes, Galactic Civilizations 2 uses online activation (or a slightly more convoluted email version if you don't have internet access on the machine you're installing to). See Stardock Activation for official information. :You are required to activate the program once per machine. Activation generates a 256 byte sig.bin file on your machine in the GalCiv2 game directory. Once it's activated, you can upgrade the game without having to reactivate (so far, anyway). It appears that significantly upgrading the OS (as in, from windows 2000 to Windows XP) on your machine will trigger re-activation. To make sure you can still play after you backup your machine, have a hard disk crash, and restore to a new machine; you must backup and restore the OS along with the game. Using a system restore CD that may have come with your machine is likely to require re-activation. :Exactly what information GC2's activation system sends to StarDock is unknown. StarDock claims only email address, game serial number, "Your IP address, non-personally identifiable machine information, and number of activation attempts will be logged." ::This is indeed what we send (along with an identifier saying what application you are trying to activate). In some cases the activation program can pop up a "where did you hear about us?" box, or ask you for and transmit your first and last name, but I don't think those are used for GalCiv II. --GreenReaper(talk) 21:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC) Is there any way to trade maps with different civilizations? Or any other way to reveal map? No -- Hykin 11:00, 22 March 2006 Then this game is seriously flawed. It absolute nonsense then i have advanced espionage on race, but cannot see where its planets are located. Selecting and removing rally points I have found that double clicking a rally point in space when nothing else is around it will bring up a dialog allowing you to disband it. However, when a starbase is over that point (which I usually do on purpose to allow easy constructing) I cannot find a way to ever remove it from the game. How do you select rally points that have other objects over them? --Cymsdale 11:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC) :A workaround for disbanding rally points under starbases is to send a ship into the starbase's square, which will make a list of units in that square now come up when you click on the starbase. The rally point will show up as one of the units and you can disband it that way. -- Jeysie Is there a way to reset a race to their default settings? After tweaking the starting abilities of a race and playing a game, the settings for that race (names, abilities, party, colors) will all be at those same settings for further games. There does not appear to be a way to put the race back to its defaults. This is important because it will get rid of bonuses that you normally cannot get for a race on the abilities panel (which seems odd in and of itself). For example, I cannot get the Altarian's +30 luck and creativity now. If I choose the creative trait, it will set the value at +25 and destroy the initial +30. --Cymsdale 11:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC) :You can currently reset all customizations for a race, including the abilities, by going to where the game stores its User files in My Documents/My Games/GalCiv2, and deleting the files with a .raceconfig extension. If you only want to reset a certain race, you can open the files in Notepad to see which race each file refers to. :I do think it would be better if you could do it within the game itself, however. -- Jeysie All the ships and anomalies in the game are black, I cannot see them. Except for the adjustable color frames, they're extremely hard to spot, as if they'd be lying in deep shadow, with no light anywhere around. Planets and stars aren't visible either. Just some circles with names underneath. Have a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 with new drivers and tried the 3dAnalyzer. Any ideas? : Any chance you're using a non-english windows 2000? There's a known isssue with 'hollow' graphics: http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx?ForumID=274&AID=101707 link. -- : Saw that and tried the workaround - it worked! BUT: I'm running WinXP Pro (no service packs, german version) and not Win2k... : nVidia has problems with testing new drivers against older cards, and also seems to have "fixed" some things in new drivers that break the graphics in odd ways on old cards. I've found it necessary to keep several versions of drivers around, just so I can switch if necessary. The "best" driver for your nVidia card isn't necessarily the most recent, and seems to vary depending on exactly which card you have. Are these known bugs or personal problems? 1) Buildings appearing on sea tiles after game load. :Completely working as designed. You can build on sea tiles. 2) Clicking a ship components thumbnail, then pressing remove does remove the component, but not the thumbnail (only happens with 'functionality' components, not extras). '' :Known bug. Appears to be fixed in the 1.1 beta. 3) Creating fleets sometimes doesn't work correctly. When trying (with a high enough logistics count) the ships selected stay separated, and an 'empty fleet' is created instead (just an empty thumbnail with no ship in it and logistics count :I have seen this problem too. It looks like a bug. --Dabei 00:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC) 4). The empty fleet disappears after clicking disband. :Well, I guess if it was never there it should disappear when disbanded, as no ships are present in it. :-) -- 05:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC) How do defenses and offenses interact? When does it make sense to use defenses, given that it usually takes more space than offense? ; Military starbases : if you want to get those nice defence bonuses from the starbase, you have to have at least one defence ; Fleet combat : In fleet combat, if you prefer to have few large starship, instead of many small ones, then it makes sense to put some defence. Consider this. If you have a single large ship attacking a fleet of 3 small ones, then 1 extra attack is just that 1 attack, but 1 extra defence is 3 times defence (all 3 ships will shoot you in one turn, thus the defence will work 3 times per turn). However, I do believe that defence needs to be made cheaper. Currently attack one means you always roll one in attack. But defence one means you roll between 0 and 1. So effectively defence one is two times worse than attack one. See ship combat and fleet combat for details about combat 08:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC) I think we could use a page for major differences between GC1 and GC2/Other 4x games and GC2 . . . for those that just want to skim and figure out what they might want to research in more depth. For example, many people seem to be stumbling over the concept that population plays no role in how productive a planet is. :GC1 vs GC2 Journal --Steelviper 18:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC) Is it possible to reuse the ship designs from a previous game? Yes, ship designs are saved between games. There is nothing special you need to do to reuse them. --Cymsdale 03:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC) How does the combat actually works? In the manual it is said that attack roll starts from 1 and defence roll starts from 1. But then if both ships have attack of 1 and defence of 1, the will be never damage done, because both attack and defence will always roll 1. So, how does it work? :According to Cari Begle (lead developer on GC2), all combat rolls have a minimum of zero, not one. --DarthKryo 02:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC) What does a NULL point means on the graphic modding explanation? Hi, I'm thinking of trying some 3D models mods, but I don't have access to 3D Studio or Maya (I'm planning on using Blender). I don't quite get what is a NULL point. Can you elaborate on that, please, so I can "port" the concept to Blender or Wings3D? : I believe the equivalent in Blender is called an "Empty". I'm not certain that Blender or Wings3D can export to a .X file. :I am using 3DS MAX and can't find it myself. :: In 3ds Max, the hardpoints are Dummy-class Helper objects, found on the Helpers tab of the create palette. --DarthKryo 02:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC) What does the number in parens besides the influence rating of a planet mean? I've looked in the manual and on various forums and have not been able to figure this one out. The mouse over gives the break down for the larger number, but there is no apparent meaning attached to the other one that I can figure out. --Cymsdale 00:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC) :If you mean the one that's fairly low (1.23, say), then that is the ratio of your influence to other people's influence. Areas that are shown as under your influence have a value 1.0 or higher. Around 5 or 6 is necessary to risk a revolt. -- 01:43, 12 March 2006 (UTC) What is the highest difficulty the AI doesn't cheat on? I always play on Tough, but the AI still seems pretty idiotic to me :( The highest it does not cheat on is Intelligent. Anything above that and it gets bonuses to production/economy. If it's doing silly things, report them as bugs! ;-) -- 01:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC) If I buy a trade good from another race, it seems that I do retain the trade good but cannnot sell it to anyone else. This could be exploity as it takes no tile on any of your planets. If I build a trade good and then destroy/decommission it, would I still retain the bonus from the trade good? 24.17.141.99 20:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC) You're not buying a trade good, you are buying the rights to use that trade good. You can't go and sell it to another player, because you don't actually own it. The original player still owns it, and can trade it to others. Also, you can't destroy/decommission a trade good, super project, or galactic achievement for this very reason. Consumed Crustacean 03:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC) How do you get the medals/awards from the Metaverse to show up when you post in the forums? First, go to the Edit My Characters page on the metaverse, and make sure that you have a default character selected. The 'default' button will be lit next to the default character; click the dimmed 'default' button by another character to change the default character. Your default character will be the one whose medals appear on your forum posts. That should be all you need to do, but keep in mind the metaverse uses caching heavily so it may take a while for medals to update or appear on your posts after you earn them. --DarthKryo 23:16, 5 March 2006 (UTC) Is there any advantage to custom building your own freghters with more cargo or faster engines? Only slightly. You can only place one trade module on a ship, so there's no way to put more on. More engines will get your freighter to its target faster so you can set up trade routes more quickly, but it will have no other effect after that. --DarthKryo 23:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC) Are there any other Galciv2.exe command line options, other than w, cheat, and nointro? Yes, although they are not really all that useful. See command line options. -- 19:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC) How does cross damage-type defense work? Say 30 shields versus 10 mass drivers for example - what kind of damage are we looking at? Defenses are only square-root effective against attack types other than their primary purpose. So 30 shields would be effively strength 5 (sqrt(30) = 5.4, round down). The mass drivers will dish out anywhere from 0 to 10 damage, and the shields will deflect anywhere from 0 to 5 damage points. So you're looking at 5 damage if both systems perform perfectly (although you could potentially land anywhere from 0 to 10 points depending on how things go). --Steelviper 15:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC) : According to the manual all defences are just added (with square roots and all). But is it really true for the combat itself? I have suspicion that it may be just maximum out of those values, not the sum. Can anyone clarify? 06:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC) Is it a bug that you always have to pay for all social production capacity, even if it isn't currently doing anything? It is not as described in the manual, where it says that you will be given back the money spent on unused production. This was not actually implemented, as it was felt that it might actually unbalance the game. It is possible to optimise it by reducing the social spending slider to zero but setting the planets where you want to continue building to focus on social spending. -- 17:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC) How exactly does the spending slider work? How does this interact with the three smaller bars for military/social/research? The spending slider reflects your discretionary spending - the amount that is spent on research and social and military projects (and not things like leases and colony maintenance that are automatically deducted). It should be used, along with the tax slider, for balancing the budget. The three smaller bars adjust the relative proportion of spending, allowing you to prioritise one thing over another. -- 17:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC) :Regarding the production sliders again, I must confess that I don't get it. For example, regarding research, how do I know what to do (with both the big and little sliders) to allocate exactly 'enough' money to research so that all my labs are 100% utilized? From what I gathered on IRC I could dump my entire GDP into research and waste a lot of money but not get any additional benefit whatsoever. Seems wrong to me. :: To get 100% of research ability utilized, you have to set the spending slider to 100%, and the Research slider to 100% (Mil and Soc sliders to 0%). 1.1 Beta has a "unused Social spending goes to Military" system. Spending money on Social has no useful effect on a planet where you aren't building or upgrading one of the squares. 69.91.82.109 16:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC) ::I'm not sure what part of IRC you got that from. As far as I know, it's directly proportional - the only effect research centers and the like have is as a kind of multiplier. I could be wrong, but the time taken always seems to go down if I increase the slider. Social and military production is the same, except that you might not be building things, in which case it's wasted. You're always researching something. -- 15:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC) What about foreign language support in Galactic Civilizations II? Paradox is in the process of translating files now. We will also be putting up our translation kit at http://www.galciv2.com so people can translate it however they want. Why does Galactic Civilizations II ask me for my activation code every time I launch it? If you've manually created a shortcut to Galactic Civilizations II and the game always asks for activation, right-click on the shortcut and make sure the working directory is set (or the Start In directory in Windows XP). Without the directory listed in the shortcut, the game will either continually ask for activation or will not start at all. When trying to build buildings it tells me Time To Build: Never. Why is that and how do I fix it? This can be caused by one of two things: # You do not have enough resources dedicated to Social Building. Raise the % allocated to social building. # If your finances are well into the negative (red), the game will halt all social building until you are less seriously endebted. What are some of the most used hotkeys or keyboard commands for Galactic Civilizations II? The manual has a listing of other hotkeys and tips, but a couple are worth mentioning: * Press Ctrl-S to QuickSave a game. * Press Enter to end the turn * Press space to find the next ship that has movement left that isn't on auto-pilot * When a Constructor is selected, press the B key to build a starbase. * When a fleet or fleets are selected in the ship stack, press U to ungroup the ships in the fleet(s). * When first starting a new game, press Ctrl-N to create a new map with your current game settings. * The Set Rally Point button the left side of the main map interface can be used to establish targets for newly constructed vessels. After creating your first rally point, the little circle with a downward arrow next to the planet thumbnail (when you have a planet selected) can be used to set the rally point target for ships constructed on that world. Do I have to kill every race to win a campaign mission? No. Winning a mission doesn't always mean killing every last potential enemy. Focus on the mission objectives. How do I play Galactic Civilizations II in a window instead of fullscreen? Create a shortcut to the GalCiv2.exe file, open up its properties and add ' w' after the shortcut target (without the quote marks, and after any existing quote marks). Where are my Galactic Civilizations II saved games and preferences stored? Save games and preferences are stored under Documents and Settings\%username\My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2. You can edit the prefs.ini file in that directory to adjust the game resolution to custom values if the in-game detection doesn't pickup special modes that are supported by your graphics card. Category:Support